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What is punctuation?
Punctuation is the use of non-alphabetical symbols in writing in order to make the text clearer or easier to read. Punctuation separates text into easily recognizable blocks of text such as sentences, clauses and lists. Punctuation is important for clarity and meaning in a sentence. Consider this example:
'While the mother was cooking the baby her brother and the dog were sleeping.'
When punctuated, the sentence is easier to read.English punctuation is used to control sentence timing and some word stress, so meanings do not always change completely, but the emphasis changes with the punctuation.
'He was only pretending to help you.'
Means he was not helping you, but trying to give the false impression that he was doing this. Now we add a comma, and get this -
'He was only pretending, to help you.'
Now this means that he was trying to help, and he was helping by pretending to do something else (though the sentence does not say what).
Punctuation is more than a way of keeping communication tidy - it is itself important for communication.
Learning Punctuation
Even if you know punctuation in your native language, it is important to understand how this is used differently in English. Unless using imported foreign words, English does not use punctuation such as the umlaut - in German - or the tilde - in Spanish - to show the pronunciation of a word. (It leaves you to guess instead!)
A student needs to learn how English pronunciation shows how a text should sound when read aloud, and which words go together. 'Late-night buses are common in London' has a very different meaning to 'Late night-buses are common in London'.
Reading a text aloud can help you to see how the punctuation controls the text, and is a useful check on your own writing. If you find that something sounds ambiguous or (for example) you run out of breath before the end of a sentence, then a punctuation check is needed.
Reading a good novel aloud with a focus on the pronunciation is a useful exercise. Comics are less useful as they have their own conventions, such as finishing even mundane comments with an exclamation mark.
What punctuation is covered in this unit?
In this unit we will look at the comma, the semi-colon; and the full stop. You may think you know about these already, but there are some details that will still surprise you.
The comma is the most common form of punctuation after the full stop. As the name says, it tells you where a meaning or a phrase finishes. (Koma is old Greek for 'chop off'). So with the example 'While mother was cooking, the baby slept.' The comma cuts off the meaning of 'cooking' from what would otherwise seem to be the object noun, 'the baby'.
In a defining relative clause, the comma cuts out and defines the extra information, and clarifies the information given. For example:
''The house, which is on your left, is mine.'
might be the only house in a forest.
'The house which is on your left is mine.'
is the house on the left side among a number of houses.
This use is not only in relative clauses. For example:
'Use pasta if you can't use rice.'
means that rice is preferred and pasta should only be used if rice is not available. However, we can cut the conditional from its natural subject with commas and reverse the meaning so that pasta is preferred and rice should only be used if pasta is not available
'Use pasta, if you can't, use rice.'
The Comma Splice
The second example above comes close to an error called a comma splice. A comma splice is when two clauses with separate grammar and meaning are joined by a comma when they might do better as individual sentences. Sometimes a comma splice is a grammatical error. In the example below a comma joins what should be two sentences.
'It was raining and I did not feel well, I did not go to the party.'
However, a comma splice is grammatical with a co-ordinating conjunction. A co-ordinating conjunction is a word which has precisely the job of explaining why an extra phrase belongs with the preceding material. So
'It was raining and I did not feel well, so I did not go to the party.'
is a grammatical use of a comma splice.
The Oxford Comma
The Oxford comma is another use of the comma of which the advanced student should be aware. Usually a list is written in the following form
Knives, forks and spoons.
However, the Oxford comma insists on extra punctuation for clarity
Knives, forks, and spoons.
Usage can be consistent or used only when necessary to avoid confusion. If a speaker says:
'You should meet my parents, Janet and Bob Smith'
we can assume the speaker is the child of Janet and Bob.
But if the person says
'I'd like you to meet my parents, Rihanna and George Bush'
we must decide whether the speaker is the unlikely love-child of a popular singer and an ex-president or would like you to meet four different people.
The Oxford comma does the comma's job of cutting off implied meaning by doing so at the end of the list.
'My parents, Rihanna, and George Bush'
is clearly four people.
Gapping Commas
Gapping commas have rather the same role as apostrophes in that they warn you that a part of a sentence is implied, and it is for the reader to fill in the missing information. With gapping commas we can shorten this example
Some people carried books and clothing, while others carried their children and pets.
to
Some people carried books and clothing, others, their children and pets.
Numbers
The comma is sometimes used to separate numbers into hundreds thousands and millions, while an alternative style uses a gap. So for example
1,002,432 and 1 002 432
are acceptable, so long as the style is consistent.
Telephone numbers are individual digits, so never use commas as the left hand numbers do not represent larger amounts.
Even native speakers sometimes get confused as to when a semi-colon should be used. The main uses of the semi-colon are listed below.
Avoiding run-on sentences
A run-on sentence is one which cannot be understood without the preceding sentence and which continues with the idea of the preceding sentence. For example:
Cooking food is fun. But eating it is better.'
can be improved with a semi colon to make a single sentence.
Cooking food is fun; but eating it is better.
So semi-colons can be used to join sentences where, because the ideas in each part are very different, a comma splice would be ungrammatical even with a co-ordinating conjunction.For example:
I disagree with everything you say; although I respect your right to say it.
Semi-colons can also be used to link related ideas into a single sentence if the 'follow-on' is clear enough. For example:
Call me tomorrow; I'll know what to do by then.
Lists
Like commas semi-colons can be used with lists. Commas are best with simple lists, and semi-commas with complex lists where some items have their own punctuation. For example:
Bring Janet and the kids; Fred, his mother, and their dog; enough for everyone to eat; and the plane tickets, your passport and the hotel reservation.
Quite often semi-colons start a list with an explicit 'introducer'. (Words that tell you a list or example is coming, such as; 'for example', 'namely' or 'that is.')
'There are some things that do not belong on an aeroplane, namely; explosives, firearms and screaming babies.'
The introducer is needed because otherwise the semi-colon should not be used to join a phrase with its definition. In the example below a colon is appropriate.
He chose a place with warm nights, lovely beaches and great cooking: southern Italy.
This is also known as the 'period' in north America, and as the 'dot' then used in internet addresses. In fact, in modern English an internet-based business is called a 'dotcom'. The 'period' comes from the Greek 'periodos' meaning a complete unit, of either time or grammatical meaning. This item of punctuation is known as the 'point' in the decimal system. All of the following punctuations use the same symbol in different ways.
As with the full stop, this symbol is also used elsewhere in written English in places where it is silent in spoken English.
With prices and currency the point is silent.
For example something costing $2.50 in written English is spoken as 'two dollars fifty'.
With some other measurements, for example: 'kg' for 'kilograms' and 'oz' for 'ounce' the point is neither written nor spoken.
Recently it has also become acceptable to write other abbreviations in this way. For example:
'mph' for 'miles per hour' and 'psi' for 'pounds per square inch'.
Measurements of time such as GMT (Greenwich mean time) and AM (morning) no longer use stops, and they are becoming less common for years dated AD or BC.
In American English, a full stop is used to mark both contractions and abbreviations. British English does not put a full stop after a contraction. An abbreviation is when the last letters of a word are cut off. A contraction removes words from the middle. So Doctor William Smith's address on Birch Avenue, Miami, Florida is written on the left in British English and on the right in American:
| Dr W. Smith | Dr. W. Smith |
| Birch Ave | Birch Ave. |
| Miami | Miami |
| Fla | Fla. |
| USA | USA |
Short abbreviations where confusion is possible should always have stops. For example:
'e.g.' 'i.e.'
as should abbreviations where confusion is possible. For example:
U.N. for 'United Nations'to avoid confusion with the prefix 'un-'; and W.H.O. to avoid confusion with the pronoun 'who'.
With commas, semi-colons and full stops, a space should be left before the start of the next word. Where a full stop would occur twice because a sentence ends in an abbreviation, the second stop is omitted. For example:
At Cambridge he studied for a B.A.
However commas and semi-colons are used together.
At Cambridge he studied for a B.A.; his M.A. in drama; and a D.Phil.; the latter in performing arts.
What you have read here deals with only some of the uses of the comma, semi-colon and full stop. Other uses have been covered in the Elementary and Intermediate sections of this course. If you want to know more, you are advised to read these sections as well. Otherwise, it is time to put what you have learned into practice!
